Monday, 27 May 2013

Just finished my presentation on Change and how MOOCs can help with coping change, given during the Managing and Surviving Change MOOC organized by the University of Aberdeen. You can see the slide deck here.

Later today (at 14 o'clock BST) I am going to speak during the Managing and Surviving Change MOOC organized by the University of Aberdeen. During this talk I will be focusing on how MOOCs can be used to prepare and cope with changes that affect all of us: downsizing, preparing for a career move, staying on top of your own expertise ... so feel free to join, the hangout URL will be posted here:https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/111851221304115850183

And these are the slides I will base my talk on ... and get into some conversations with:

Tuesday, 21 May 2013

While writing up a first workable draft for my probation report (to pass from MPhil to PhD student ... like a first exam, with a defence in front of a small jury), I came across this wonderful free book on Open Educational Resources. The book is a collaboration between UNESCO, Athabasca Uni, Commonwealth of Learning. It might be of interest to everyone looking into online learning, MOOC or simply looking for resources that can be embedded in your own course. OER are used around the world at this point, which gives the concept an added perspective, because an OER can be as local or as global as you make them, fitting the content and the goal of your own or any course. Where I must say I would love to see more local OER.

A short description of what you can expect by words of the editors of the book:

The development and exchange of OER continues to be a
technologically intensive process. Technological considerations in OER are not
limited to authoring or remixing tools. Collaborative production of OER
requires welldesigned and robust online spaces and infrastructure (Wikiwijs)
and repositories. The latter can also be used to combine OER to create lesson
plans online (Open Science Education Resources in Europe). Unless OER are
consistently and adequately described, they cannot easily be located in online
searches. The chapter on GLOBE considers these challenges and offers solutions.
COL’s earlier publications on OER offered insights and advice on good
institutional practices, business models and policy matters.

However, the social dimension emerges as an important factor
from a number of chapters in this book. The study on OpenLearn shows that when
OER are taken directly from formal courses, the biggest impact is on the
formation of communities of learners
around the OER. This is similar to the conclusion of the chapter on OER for
Lifelong Learning, both reflecting the experience of the UK’s Open University.
The African Virtual University (AVU) chapter reveals the importance of the
formation of a consortium of OER producers across institutions and countries.
This process requires subtle yet intensive facilitation for its sustenance and
is important for the quality assurance of OER. The detailed analysis of the
experience of the African Health OER Network also points to the viability of
viewing OER as a social practice.

In two different chapters that focus on MOOCs (contributed
by the global pioneers of MOOCs), what emerges is that even if the teachers do
not use OER, the learners draw upon OER through their own social space and
networks. The chapter based on COL’s experience reveals that the existing
hierarchies and power relationships in many developing country institutions do
not allow for the decentralisation that fosters and encourages the use of OER.
The experience of the Open University in the Netherlands reveals the
significant role of trust in encouraging the increased use and sharing of OER.

This is the summary they provide and it gives a good overview of all the subjects addressed in the report:

In January 2013, the University of Edinburgh launched six MOOCs on the Coursera virtual learning environment (VLE) platform [www.coursera.org]. These were short fully-online courses, each lasting either 5 or 7 weeks, and they had a total initial enrolment of just over 309,000 learners.

Six different subject areas were chosen, reflecting the University’s diverse spread of disciplines, with two MOOCs offered by each of the three academic Collegesin the University: Humanities and Social Sciences (Introduction to Philosophy; E-learning and Digital Cultures); Science and Engineering (Artificial Intelligence Planning; Astrobiology and the Search for Life on Other Planets); Medicine and Veterinary Medicine (Equine Nutrition; Critical Thinking in Global Challenges). AI Planning was developed at Master level, the rest were at undergraduate (Bachelor) level.

Each MOOC team chose a course structure best suited for the delivery of their subject matter; as a result, six different course structures were produced, with several teams experimenting with content delivery and collaboration methods outwith the Coursera VLE. Of the 309,628 people who registered on the Edinburgh MOOCs, 123,816 learners accessed the course sites(‘active learners’) during the first week of launch – an average of 40% of those enrolled - of whom 90,120 engaged with content in Week One. In total 165,158
individuals actively engaged with course content during the life span of the courses, and 36,266 learners engaged with week 5 assessments(29% average of initial active learners, with a range of 7-59% across the six courses). The MOOCs had no barriers to entry and exit, and the option existed to study without active engagement with quizzes or social media; this permits behaviour patterns distinct from those of on-campus degree courses.

A pre-launch (Entry) survey was sent to 217,512 unique email accounts one week before the courses began [22.01.13]; 45,182 individuals replied, giving a 21% response rate. (Note that enrolment continued after this survey was sent out.) 15,351 responses were gathered in the end-of-course evaluation (Exit)surveys.
Of those who responded to the Entry survey, 75% indicated this was their first experience of a MOOC, and 53% were enrolled on only one MOOC offering. 203 countries were represented, with the highest proportion of respondents living in the USA (28%) and UK (11%). 33% were between 25-34 years of age, with ‘Teaching and education’ (17%) and ‘Student (college/university)’ (15%) as the highest represented areas of current employment. Over 70% of respondents indicated completion of degree-level academic achievement; a total of 40% respondents had achieved a postgraduate degree. These demographics were very similar to those of respondents in the combined Exit survey.

98% of Exit survey respondents indicated that “they felt they got out of the course(s) what they wanted”, with the great majority reporting that the length, pacing and level had been about right. The most common time spent on study per week on the MOOCs was in the range 2-4hrs.

Both Entry and Exit surveys asked respondents for their reasons for enrolling, of which the main options chosen were to learn new subject matter and find out about MOOCs/online learning. Gaining a certificate or career enhancement were less significant but more localised to specific MOOCs.

34,850 Statements of Accomplishment (SoAs) have been distributed to learners across the six courses – 21% of active learners or 12% of total enrolment, with ranges of 4-44% and 2-36%, respectively, across the individual courses.The whole process from initial partnership discussions with Coursera to completion of all six courses and distribution of SoAs took approximately 10 months. This document provides a summary of the 10-month process, including some comparisons between the six courses and our initial reflections on the data and our experiences in offering the MOOCs.

As I am exploring the main factors influencing self-directed learning in a mobile, online platform (FutureLearn) I am screening all frameworks to get an idea what is said, and especially what is not yet said about individual/collaborative learning in a mobile learning environment. I would love to get a framework out on self-directed learning with mobile technology, influences, strategies, getting into the learning zone...

Thursday, 16 May 2013

Maria Popova is an astonishing individual. I honestly do not know how she manages to build one of the most inspiring, cross-disciplined, politically aware, literary content outputs ... out there. Since I discovered BrainPickings, I must admit I was taking her fabulous content for granted, but today I realized what a treasure trove it is and that it is about time I promote it. Brainpickings is a weekly media rich newsletter that offers a good read for minds looking for some art/science/literature food-for-thought.

Just wondering how much time she puts in (in 2012 the hours spent indicated 5000!!!)... Such media rich poignant articles. I would love to see that as a virtual, interactive eBook on any device. Every Sunday a clean slate of nice readings...

Still need to make a contribution to Angies work of art though (donations keep the newsletter going)... will do so right now (says she who once said "you have to pay for your own meal" to her 12 year old sister and her friend, luckily my partner intervened and put me on the right track - love is sometimes expressed by money).

With every career move, there comes a time of trepidation, confusion, wild gesturing in the living room while expressing "where am I going? What am I doing?!". That is the phase I am in right now. Luckily Andy Coverdale tweeted about a twitter chat for ... early career researchers! And although my grey hairs tend to remind me of careers passed... I feel I am an early career protagonist once again due to my choice to dig into PhD and its research challenges.

To be honest I have NO idea of where to go to once my PhD would be finished, I do not even have an idea on how to go about building towards getting an interesting position... if anyone is interested, here is my short bio: into innovation, teaching big classes, taking initiatives, getting projects funded and realized, international speaker, allround charming presence, passionate about research/writing/new media and mobile MOOCs.... anyone... anyone who wants to hire me? A call for jobs in a blog, is this a good idea? Well why not, so leaving it in.

A friend with an amazing mind Michael Sean Gallagher just got a professor position at the prestigious, international Hankuk University and as I am so eager to learn how that happens I could not wait to ask him how he did it: networking and putting his work out there was his answer.

But even with a network, publications, projects under my belt... the thing I am missing is how to go about it? How can I get hold of positions opening up and me getting there? And do you really need to go through all the hoops (postdoc, fellowship... I do not even know all the names). Or maybe I should create hoops? There must be some backchannel to get in a position based on expertise, drive, capacity to go where no research human has gone before? Or maybe that is more a corporate option? ... Well, that would be the position I would go for anyway.

Wednesday, 15 May 2013

Change management is and has been a tough nut to crack in any organization. Now, with the economic crisis still weighing on knowledge workers wherever they work, managing the change that is happening all around us in our professional as well as our personal sphere is becoming quite a challenge.
The organizers of the Managing & Surviving Change MOOC will try and provide and exchange strategies on managing this change. The official start is on Monday 20th May at 2pm GMT.

I will be taking up one of the talking slots on 27 May, focusing on how MOOCs can help in keeping on top of change (more on my focus a bit further). But there is a whole variety of participants, and some of those will highlight one section that relates to change: mindfulness, leadership, how to make the most of innovative technologies in the workplace & your community and a whole host of other things. You can also access and upload resources before the course starts and also tweet about the course using#ChChaChanges.

To me MOOCs - in an ideal form which still needs to be found - will be able to cater to our natural sense of learning. If I look at my life I have always been lucky to be able to rely on others to enlighten me, inspire me, direct me towards my goals. So at a certain moment I felt a bit confident that I had this lifelong learning skill covered...But a couple of years ago, this naturally acquired trait started to be questioned again, and I feel it is not only me, but all of us that feel the pressure. In addition to this the media tells us we need to enter into the ‘knowledge age’, every professional magazine whether focusing on psychology, management or research is promoting online, digital skills … and all the while the sword of Damocles is positioned above our head and is said to fall down upon us if we do not accept change, meaning technological change, meaning more administration, more quality guidelines … more indirect work and training on top of our already heavy workloads. This puts a pressure on all of us, and as such on our colleagues, families and friends.

So here is where I think MOOCs can help us to get our lifelong learning back into pace with contemporary demands and evolution. Because we all need to (re)think where we want to go with our professional and personal life, we need to explore ways that can help us to achieve this. MOOCs can be an option in getting many of us closer to our goals, for MOOCs can be set up rapidly, cater to very broad or very detailed knowledge needs and they can be build with as much or as little technological tools as an organizer wishes. ﻿

Tuesday, 14 May 2013

Thanks to the Ol'daily my attention got grabbed by an article from Elsua (Luis Suarez - an KM/IBM social media pioneer). In his reflective blogpost on the industrialization of social media in the enterprise. His words rang a bell, as I am also caught between automating my (not corporate, but as I see it my personal brand) social media stream, because I feel I am not putting out as much as I want to. But after reading his blogpost, I realized the output is not why I started using social media, it is indeed the conversation, the network, the exchange of ideas ... the dialogue. I need to meet with others, discuss ideas, meet new viewpoints, feel what is out there to grow myself or at least to see other directions. Some poignant issues raised by Elsua:

Why do we have to keep up with that constant urge towards busyness (and bursting online activity) vs. pause, reflection and adding relevant value where it may apply into the overall conversation? Haven’t we learned that social networking tools are just not another marketing channel, but purely a conversation amongst peers on a common interest and with a strong urge to connect further along? Have we forgotten how for a conversation to take place out there in digital channels both parties need to be present and for real? providing value and being silent are two sides of the same coin, that is, you

He is hitting the nail on the head. Without reflection, there is no innovative insight, no grounded argument, no linkage to the past that can provide food for the future. Another point he raises is the fact that some of us knowledge workers decide to go for automated online presence (I for one simply send my twitter feeds to Facebook, but I am scarcely on Facebook myself apart from sporadic conversations with Facebook friends that are not in my other social media networks... so sometimes I wonder is this the right way?). Luis links this choice to be present online even though it is only automated to the feeling of abandonment which we cannot accept. We rather 'fake' a minimal online presence, then show that we are no longer 'out there'. Again, this feels so true. But then, for me, I want to keep my network alive. Like Luis, and many of us, our blogs seem to stand even if other media are sometimes put on a low frequency output. My blog is what keeps me going, is my valuable knowledge archive, even a bit like my life's tracker (well in a small, but still a meaningful way). So I agree with him, it is better to be silent at times and stay real, connect on a frequency that suits the personal possibilities, than to be out there without soul, without focus. Having said that... back to the writing board in getting a research ethics pack together... should write about that tomorrow... maybe, sure feels real.

Tuesday, 7 May 2013

mHealth is a rapidly growing market. The interesting thing is that it actually reaches both patients and practitioners around the globe with all the people around the world using cell phones. Because of the wide variety of options that are out there, I wrote an article for always inspirational Learning Solutions magazine which is the eLearning Guild publication. The mHealth article is entitled Mobile Learning Support for Global Health.

In the article I look at the requirements to get an mHealth project started, what it takes to plan a health related project (e.g. secure data handling) and get it implemented (strategic plan, mobile content mix,...) and I look at opportunities for mHealth applications (e.g. education awareness, early warning systems for epidemic outbreaks, personal well-being...)°

With the world getting smaller by the day, mHealth is a sound and human region of eLearning to get into. And for all of us who have experience in mobile instructional design... this is a great area to explore or expand. There are also links to some free articles and papers related to mHealth for additional inspiration.

And if you are in the neighborhood of San Jose, California, there is a wonderful mobile learning conference planned in 18 - 19 June, the mLearnCon organized by the eLearning Guild. I have been there in the past and it is a real treat, because in just 2 days you will get immersed in all things mLearning and ready to take control of a new mLearning project.

Friday, 3 May 2013

The world can be a tough place. As I walk from the open university to the bus stop I pass by a park. It is a big park with an estate in it harboring big houses. At the end of that park, near the bus stop there is a small playground. As spring is here the park is filled with daffodils and other blossoming trees. Before I reach the bus stop I need to go through a tunnel, underneath a busy lane separating two estates. That tunnel takes me to another part of town which is known as a poverty struck area. Kids from that area cross the tunnel as well, to play in the playground at the other side of that imaginary financial fence.

Last week I saw a group of kids playing, while two of them stood a bit further. A small girl - age 5 or 6 - was standing near the playground with her older brother. She was facing the tunnel. They had an argument. "Go back! We're not goin' home yet," said the brother, pointing her to the playground. The girl kept moving slowly towards the tunnel, nearer to home. The brother got mad and shouted at her. The small girl stood her ground, holding her shoes in her hands.

It was a strange sight, I wondered about the shoes.

The argument kept going, and as I reached them, the girl saw me in the corner of her eye. The girl decided she would go home, even if she had to do it on her own. She started walking in parallel with me, heading towards the tunnel. Her brother was reluctantly staying. Then the little girl turned around, shouting at him: "because I do not want to get raped!".

I could not believe my ears. That girl was much to young to have this fear. She should not have to worry about it. Automatically the shoes in her hand got a strange meaning. I turned my head around, looking at the playground where the other kids - 12 to 15 years - were still playing football or simply hanging out. They just kept on playing, no parents in sight, no older people. I slowed down my pace, and walked in parallel with the girl. The brother caught up with us once we were at the other side of the tunnel. They went home I guess.

It was an eerie feeling. It brought a memory back to mind. Me being about 8 or 9, surrounded by older boys in a park, one of which shouted: "let's rape her!". In my case it was a small park. I went to play there with my best mate Koen and we lived only a block away. The boys had threatened me and Koen. Koen - being a boy - managed to run off, shouting he would fetch help. As I stood there I clearly felt threatened and as a kid I did not know what to do. Luckily Koen came over before anything bad happened. Koen had encountered his dad coming back from work right at that time. His dad was in the army, a sergeant. He was still in uniform. As he came running to us, some of the kids ran off. But the ringleader stayed. The father gave him a stern talk, said he knew where he lived and would talk to his parents. The kid was clearly not impressed. I was escorted home. Koen and me were both pale and silent.

Yesterday, I took the bus from the same bus stop. A mom and her little son got on it as well. The boy aged about 7. They sat down right behind me. As the bus filled with other people, the mom talked to her son.

"I need to work longer hours now, to earn more money."

"Do we need to move to another house again?" the boy asked with his high pitched young voice.

"No, not if I work longer hours. But I want you to learn to take the bus home alone."

"But I don't want to."

"You are becoming a big boy now, you will manage" said the mother. But her tone of voice gave away her own uncertainty.

As the bus drove some teenagers got on the bus as well. They were jolly due to the good weather. At a certain moment a teenage girl screamed. A wasp had gotten in the bus and was circling around her. Her fellow schoolmates laughed and yelled as the wasp flew from one to the other. The anxiety of the wasp got some girls to swear. That got the mom behind me slightly worried.

"Cover your ears" she said to her little boy.

"Why?"

"Because they are using bad words"

The mom wanted to protect her son, even from those harmless, harsh words... she wanted to safeguard him, but life sometimes does not provide the condition to watch over them all the time, not when money is hard to come by.

Wednesday, 1 May 2013

To be honest, I never anticipated the anxiousness I would
feel pressing a publish button. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable and
experienced in trying out new technologies or new digital options but … having
my own words out there for everyone to see, read and critique is a tough
realization. Nevertheless, one has to go out there and explore options, for
gathering new experiences is part of life.

Have a distribution/dissemination strategy. There are A LOT
of authors out there! When I looked at new releases from the kindle store only
three days after publishing my book, I realized that there were over 200 new
titles … in the non-fiction education section alone already!!!! This made me
realize that publishing an eBook is just the same as eLearning: you cannot
offer it and expect people to buy it… you need to think of a strategy for
dissemination, and understand that every one book sold is already fabulous!

Provide access guidelines for readers with different
technologies. Another thing I realized was that choosing Kindle led to some
disappointment for those people not having a Kindle reader. Understandably for
in technology, making a specific choice means you exclude other choices from
access. Luckily I found out that Amazon actually offers free Kindle apps, which
allow anyone with a computer (Windows XP, 8; Mac; iPad, iPhone, iPod touch,
Android smartphones, Android tablets and Windows 8 tablets) to be able to
actually read the book (also later on).

Understand the “look inside” option. The “look inside”
feature that you can see on some of the books, needs to be activated by
becoming a member of that Amazon service. I did not realize this until a few
days later. So I registered for the service. After reading the guidelines I
noticed that Kindle books do not need to be uploaded again, they will
automatically be transformed into the “look inside” feature, but only after one
week. This made me wonder whether next time I might upload the book, but wait
for a week before promoting it, as this would immediately enable possible
readers to get a feel of what the book is like. Waiting for the feature to
activate till date, so not sure which pages are selected and such.

No cost. It does not cost anything to actually get your book
published (or it does not have to cost anything, a nice cover, some layout,
pictures … all of these might cost money, but you can do it yourself as well)

Quickly updateable. You can easily update a version of your
book. Nice, certainly in fields of interest that evolve rapidly (like technology
based learning)

Interesting royalty scheme. The Kindle Direct Publishing
option also offers a 70% royalty option. Which I found of interest, because it
combines low-cost for the buyer with more of a return for the author.

It also allows you to publish in multiple languages.

And it gets distributed globally.

So what I have learned so far:

Ask people to review your draft manuscript. It is amazing
how blind one becomes after rereading one’s own manuscript over and over again.
And although reviewers can pick up a lot of mistakes or doubles… you are still
in for many surprises (or at least I was). But then again, I could have asked a
reviewing company to have a look, but that would probably take away any
earnings I might hope to acquire (if any).

Write a manuscript without any formatting. This includes
rewriting stuff you already wrote in draft documents, as these might bring
along fonts or paragraph spacing that might interfere with the final formatted
version. If you do copy paste from other documents, you can copy all to notepad
(no wrapping!) and get rid of any formatting that way.

Follow the Kindle Self Publishing guidelines to get your
manuscript ready. Once your manuscript is finalized and cleaned from any
formatting, you can put in the suggested options provided by the Kindle
publishing options from Amazon (put in bookmark toc at the table of contents so
kindle users can use the ‘go to’ option, put in headings so you can integrate a
table of contents, put in your pictures straight from a designated book folder,
get your bullet lists straightened out,
…).

Be meticulous at all stages of the process. Next thing (but
this is definitely due to my own eagerness): checking the book for spelling and
grammar is one thing, but remember to double check the details you put into the
Kindle publishing site (I for example managed to put the title of my book in
twice! Argh).

Use the preview option and look at possible errors (with me
again I saw that a table was completely warped – took it out, and I saw
paragraph spacing that was not visible in the original word document =>
which led me to the notepad option guideline above)

Get your rates straight. What I did was indicate that prices
for my book should all be linked to the US price of the book (so using exchange
rates). And although there is a clear indication that Amazon will adjust the
prices to the required KDP minima or maxima, it just does not feel that
comfortable. Luckily I could change them within 24 hours which felt nice.

Take the VAT into account. Another thing I did not realize
was that once I put in a price for the book, the actual selling price was
higher as VAT was added to the initial sales prize.

Be online. The publishing goes quickly if your manuscript
meets the technical guidelines provided by Amazon. But make sure you publish at
a moment that you can check your ‘your manuscript is published’ mail, as this
will offer you links to alter some details and/or add an author profile page
which is always nice to be able to edit as soon as your manuscript is published
(I published at a moment I would not be online for 18 hours, which resulted in
some errors in details that could only be rectified after people had already
bought the book, which inevitably leads to possible reviews affected with the
mistakes that are in at that time). But then again, as a first time eBook
author, people will most likely not go wild buying the book.

Author bonus. Once I got feedback from Amazon that my book
was published, I was redirected to an author field, where I could upload a
picture, add my blog, put in my twitter id … this made me feel like an actual
author (I know, I am not, but … it just felt that way which makes it a nice
mental bonus)

Accept and learn. And last but not least, I expect to be in
a potential uncomfortable place: people will write reviews and I need to be
prepared for that: unknown people writing about something you put your heart
and soul in for weeks, if not months.

Looking at the
numbers

As a newbie author I was obsessed to find out if my book was
selling at least one copy … so I was surfing to get an idea of which analytics
were out there.

First of all you can keep some kind of track of how you book
is doing using the Kindle Rank Calculator (http://kdpcalculator.com/
). You go to your author page, you copy the Kindle rank of your ebook and you
fill it in the Kindle Rank Calculator and … you get some idea of how your book
is doing currently.

Then you have the Kindle eBook reports (but they take 15
days to get data, so be patient … I was not at first, so was anxious until I
finally saw them), which give you an overview of how many book you have sold
and how this relates to the royalties you might get (admitting here that my
math skills are so basic nowadays that I just look at the basic numbers). The
reports for the Kindle eBooks can be viewed https://kdp.amazon.com/mn/reports
(make sure you are logged in with your Amazon account.

… what can I say, it is clearly an adventure, but it is fun.
And at this point, I am already thinking about my next eBook. Interested in
whether establishing some frequency in book publishing might affect sales.